Saturday, May 2, 2009

I found an interesting article today on sexism in the movie 17 Again. I've never seen the movie, and I didn't really plan on it, but after reading this article I might have to. Has anyone seen it? Is the misogny really this apparent?

Here's an excerpt:

As you can imagine when dealing with a movie pushing right wing attitudes about sex, sexism comes right along. Dargis was right about the misogyny. Even though Leslie Mann's character comes across as much less a harpy as she did in "Knocked Up" (she has to, or we can't root for their happy ending), the rest of the movie bundles up some ugly assumptions about women. There are good girls (who are virgins or happy teenage mothers) and every other woman is a horror show, a slut and a monster all rolled into one. Michael's female coworkers are all bimbos who get promoted over him, because of their sluttiness. The wife's friend is a slut who has the crazy idea that divorced women should feel free to date, even if they have children. And of course, you have the "slutty" teenage girls who pursue young men, who are presumed to be broken and stupid besides. And even though we're told that Michael's daughter is smart and has a future, we see no evidence of this, and only know that she's a bad girl with bad taste in men, and she's only redeemed by keeping her cherry intact. Even then, her whole performance of sexual desire is treated as grotesque in and of itself, which fits with the rest of the film's horror at assertive female sexuality.